“What men begin to see in other women when they get drunk, they see in Garbo when they’re sober,” joked Hollywood film critic Kenneth Tynen. Greta really penetrated men's souls with some kind of witchcraft, but at the same time she insisted that she would only marry her idol Moritz Stiller …
Greta Garbo never married until the end of her life. Moritz Stiller, producer and director, wrote on this occasion: “She shouldn't get married at all. This will become an obstacle in her career. She will be the greatest movie star. It was he who discovered Garbo's talent and brought her to Hollywood.
The camera loved her
Greta was born in a working-class neighborhood in Stockholm in 1905, the son of Karl the caretaker and housewife Anna, who lived modestly and fed with three children from a vegetable garden on the outskirts of the city. The head of the family was a giant under 2 meters with clearly sculpted facial features and sad eyes. This "Viking", as his neighbors called him, drank heavily, but they were friends with their youngest daughter Greta - he read her fairy tales and told her about his childhood. When Greta turned 14, her father died of tuberculosis.
After the funeral, she decided to get rich without fail - she understood that the family simply could not buy the necessary medicines for the patient. Karl did not leave any money, but Greta inherited one jewel - the beauty of her face - from her father …
After dropping out of school, she stood behind the counter of a department store, and soon hit the pages of an advertising catalog as a model showing hats. It immediately became clear that "the camera loves her." At the age of 16, Greta starred in film episodes and soon entered the Stockholm Theater Academy, where she met with Stipler.
He was 22 years older than Greta and also came from a large family, not just a janitor, but a military musician. Having lost his father and mother early, he grew up with foster parents. At the age of 16, Moishe, as the boy was called, was already playing in the local theater. All this happened in Finland, which was then part of Russia, and therefore in 1904, a 20-year-old guy was drafted to the Russo-Japanese War. He did not appear at the assembly point and was put on trial for desertion. Then he fled to Sweden, where by the age of 27 he headed the avant-garde theater, and soon moved to the cinema. And somehow Stiller asked the theater academy to find two pretty students for the episodes. One of them turned out to be 17-year-old Greta.
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Hollywood star
She was shaking with fear of meeting the classic of silent films, and he drove up in a canary-colored limousine, sparkling like a Christmas tree, since it was hung from head to toe with decorations. Stiller on the move showered Greta with barbs about her weight, and then shouted at the screen tests: "I don't believe!" (in Russian, in the manner of Stanislavsky, as I once heard in Russia at my own expense). But Greta idolized this despot and meekly listened to his every word. Moritz made her lose 10 kilograms and change her hair, and then sent her to straighten her teeth. He sculpted perfection from it, a piece copy, a star of the world screen. Having come up with the sonorous pseudonym Garbo (instead of his own surname Gu-stafsson), he took her in the title role and launched the film.
This his "Saga of Yeste Berling" (based on the novel by Lagerlöf) was seen by one of the "fathers" of the Hollywood studio MGM, Louis Mayer (This is his trademark lion roars on the screensavers of the best American films, and his Oscar is the pinnacle of prestige to this day). So, having watched Saga, this American rushed to Stockholm to lure Stiller to the States. Greta Mayer did not really notice, but Moritz, who never wanted to part with his beloved child, insisted on her inclusion in the contract. The boss reluctantly agreed - only later will he understand what kind of treasure fell into his hands. Stiller's fees were $ 1,000 a week, Garbo only got a hundred.
In Los Angeles, the Swede was treated like another whim of the boss - not all of his European finds turned out to be discoveries. But as the filming began, everyone started talking in unison about enchanting magic, special "screen presence" and Garbo's sexual attraction. Stiller, meanwhile, quarreled with Mayer and was fired, and his film was transferred to another director. Something unexpected happened, and what was there - just out of the ordinary. Garbo, with whom the contract was signed only "in addition" to Stiller, began its meteoric rise. And he, the master for whom the big American boss sailed across the ocean, suddenly became superfluous. True, Moritz was hired by Mayer's competitors from another Hollywood studio, but, alas, he was soon fired again - right in the midst of filming, due to disagreements with the owners. Greta, on the other hand, was allowed everything!She demanded an increase in fees, Mayer stamped his feet and began to threaten with deportation, and Garbo just took and did not go to the shooting. And the owner gave in!
Now she earned five times more than Stiller at the beginning of her Hollywood career, and starred in the movie "Flesh and the Devil" paired with "Hollywood's first lover" John Gilbert (it's like playing with Brad Pitt today!). John proposed to her, and in defiance of Moritz, she agreed, but … did not appear at the crown. Then she told reporters that if she did marry, it would only be for her idol Stiller. But Moritz stood his ground - they say that marriage would only ruin her career - and packed his suitcases.
Leave me alone
She considered the separation short-lived. He hardly believed it and inspired his student that she should stay, that it was here, in Hollywood, that she would become a star, and this would be their common victory. Destroy his main creation - Garbo, the perfection he created from scratch - Stiller was unable to. For her, this was a strong argument - Greta supported her mother, helped her brother's family, paid for her sister's treatment.
At the gangplank she said: "See you soon, Moishe!" (as his mother called him in childhood). And in response I heard: "Goodbye!" He was in a deplorable state mentally and physically - he was choking with a cough, he was tormented by shortness of breath. Stiller knew he was going to die …
A year later, Garbo received a telegram right on the set of the movie "Wild Orchids" - Stiller died at 45 from pleurisy. She turned pale, stepped aside and stood for several minutes against the wall, pressing her palms to her eyes. Then, making an effort on herself, she continued shooting …
Garbo really flew to the skies, as her beloved Moritz dreamed. But to relatives in Sweden, she wrote: "It is difficult and sad to be alone, but sometimes it is even more difficult to be with someone together." Greta did not "revolve in society", did not let anyone into her filming, and when she saw the paparazzi, she disappeared. The crowd whispered that it was Stiller's death that affected Garbo. The talk of the town was her response to an invitation from a prominent director to dine on Wednesday: "How do I know I'm going to get hungry by Wednesday?" She threw journalists over her shoulder: "Leave me alone!" Those in revenge called her the "Swedish Sphinx".
But she didn't even care about nicknames and gossip, she continued in the same spirit and shamelessly "dynamited" men. For example, the conductor Stokowski got divorced because of her, but in response he heard the already famous: "Leave me alone!" From the gate, the nutritionist of the Rothschilds and the Duchesses of Windsor, Dr. Hauser, received a turn, followed by another millionaire, Cecil Beaton, a photographer of the Royal family of England and the stars of show business. Even the fact that she was the only woman (in the world!) That this famous gay fell in love with, Garbo was not in the least impressed. Men all over the world dreamed of her. The proof of which was, for example, the novel For Whom the Bell Tolls. His hero on the eve of the battle presents "how Garbo came to his bed", and "her hair slipped over his face." Didn't Hemingway himself have such a vision? In a word, a good half of humanity was crazy about this woman,and she suffered in silence alone. Only once she said: “I never said:“I want to be alone”. I just said: "I want to be left alone" - and this is not the same!"
She outlived her Moritz by 62 and died in a private clinic in New York at the age of 85. Both of them remain in history forever: she - as the greatest actress in the world, he - as an artist to whom Swedish cinema owes its "golden age". But Stiller is more often remembered as the director who opened the Oscar-winning Garbo …
Magazine: Mysteries of History №9. Author: Lyudmila Makarova
